Health & Environment Active Updated Jul 8, 2026
The Champlain Hudson Power Express is a 339-mile transmission line, buried under Lake Champlain and the Hudson River, built by Blackstone-backed Transmission Developers to carry 1,250 megawatts of Hydro-Quebec hydropower to a converter station in Astoria, Queens. The state says it can cover up to 20% of New York City's power needs, about a million homes, and insulate the grid during heat emergencies. Sixteen years after it was first proposed, and on its first official day under contract with the state, it went offline during a heat wave.
Jul 8, 2026 Latest
The Champlain Hudson Power Express failed for a second time this month on July 4, during the peak of the heat wave, Gothamist reported. As of July 8, Hydro-Quebec had not provided a restoration timeline for the second outage. The line, which powers roughly a million homes when running, had previously tripped offline on July 1 and been reported back online before the second failure.
Jul 4, 2026
Con Edison deliberately cut power to 9,800 customers in Howard Beach, Ozone Park, Richmond Hill, and South Ozone Park, and reduced voltage 8% for nearly 400,000 more across Brooklyn and Queens, as the heat index hit 115 degrees. A prior wave had knocked out more than 80,000 customers from Thursday into Friday morning. The deliberate cutoffs showed the grid's limits on the heat wave's peak day, with the Champlain Hudson line back online but the network unable to hold full load without shedding customers. [64]
Jul 1, 2026
The line tripped offline at 5:30 a.m. on its first day under contract, staying down until Thursday afternoon as the heat index broke 105 and Central Park hit 100 for the first time in over a decade. Grid managers issued conservation warnings and cut power to parts of Riverdale.
Jun 16, 2026
Governor Hochul celebrated the project's completion and energization, saying the 1,250-megawatt line would deliver 10.4 terawatt-hours a year, meet up to 20% of New York City's energy needs, and power over a million homes.
May 13, 2026
The line entered commercial operation and began feeding the city's grid, amNewYork reported, after construction wrapped at the end of December 2025 and months of commissioning and testing. The outlet put the project's cost at $6 billion.
Nov 1, 2024
In November 2024, NYSERDA and Forward Power, the energyRe and Invenergy joint venture behind Clean Path NY, mutually terminated the contracts for that 175-mile line, the other project awarded under the state's Tier 4 program. That left CHPE, then 50% complete and expected online by May 2026, as the program's only line into the city.
Nov 30, 2022
Governor Hochul announced the start of construction, with a groundbreaking in Washington County near Whitehall. The state put the in-service date at spring 2026 and said the line would carry roughly one-third of New York City's annual electric consumption.
Apr 14, 2022
The Public Service Commission approved NYSERDA's Tier 4 contract with Hydro-Quebec for the line, a roughly 339-mile route through Lake Champlain, the Hudson and Harlem rivers, and railroad rights of way. Transmission Developers Inc., a Blackstone portfolio company, said construction would create over 1,400 jobs and targeted delivery in 2025.
Nov 30, 2021
Hydro-Quebec and Transmission Developers announced they had finalized and submitted a Tier 4 contract with NYSERDA to deliver 1,250 megawatts of hydropower to New York City, enough for over a million homes. The companies said the line would be fully operational in 2025.
Apr 18, 2013
The New York State Public Service Commission granted the project a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need, the state siting approval it needed to build.
Feb 23, 2010
Transmission Developers, a firm backed by the Blackstone Group, was announced on February 23, 2010, to build the Champlain Hudson Power Express, twin cables running roughly 339 miles from the Canadian border to Astoria, Queens. The plan buried the line about 7 feet under Lake Champlain and the Hudson, Harlem, and East rivers.
The checkable commitments in this fight, tracked until they are kept or broken.
The line insulates New York City from blackouts during heat emergencies
New York State (the premise of the state's Tier 4 hydropower contract)
Day one under contract: offline for over a day during a 105 heat index. Whether that was a commissioning hiccup or a pattern is the open question.
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